I helped him, but my help was half-assed, at least according to him, and so most of the time I sat on a bench or in the car and read a book or a magazine. Murphy was about the car the way I was about shoes. He didn’t see it that way but it was true. Nobody needed to wash their car every damn week. Or spend two hours doing it himself instead of going through an automatic car wash where it would have taken ten minutes. Only suggest to him that we do that and it was enough to send him into a fifteen minute tirade about how those automatic car washes were for shit and scratched the paint job and didn’t get the undercarriage and how the hell can you even suggest a thing like that, Constance. Don’t even think such sacrilege, please.
I did suggest it about once a week because I secretly laughed my ass off at how frothed at the mouth the man would get. Like clockwork. Every single time.
He was waiting for me by the vending machines outside the ladies’ room. The day after shifting was hell on the bladder. We drank tons of water before we shifted because if we didn’t, the muscle cramps the next day were severe.
Instead of walking to the car, I went in the other direction, toward a small stand of maple trees and what, in spring and summer, would be a flower bed. Right now it was a sullen brown pile of half-frozen mud.
Murphy fell into step with me and we walked together without speaking. I wanted to hold his hand because I wanted the contact and the comfort but I was too fragile. Murphy didn’t like to be touched first. When I forgot and did reach out to him, he invariably froze for a second before relaxing. He wouldn’t take his hand away from mine, but he would freeze at first and I knew I’d take it way too personally today so I didn’t risk it.
Instead I kept as close as I could get to him without touching him. Our coat sleeves brushed, but our hands never met.
We avoided the grubby snow bank by common consent. The bottom edges of it were liberally stained with dog piss. If I concentrated I could smell it. If I really focused I could tell which stains belonged to different dogs and which were made by repeat offenders. I had some dubious talents as Pack and that was one of them.
The whole damn snow bank depressed me, just like the whole damn thing with Grandfather Tobias and our trip to Connecticut.
“This sucks,” I announced, apropos of nothing.
“At least you have the vindication, the satisfaction, of knowing for sure,” he remarked. He’d carefully and considerately avoided talking about the situation, allowing me to go first. The entire hour and a half we’d been in the car, he’d wanted to talk about this but he wouldn’t bring it up unless I did. He’d learned over our road trip that silence drew me out better than direct confrontation.
“You know the grandfather in your pack rigged Sorcha’s accident too,” I said in a low voice.
He shrugged and the wind blew his straight blondish-brown hair around. He’d cut his hair very short since Houston, but there was still enough for the winter wind to play with.
“He hasn’t confessed yet.”
“Has he been questioned?”
Murphy looked at me from the corner of his dark eyes. He was hunched against the biting wind and had his hands shoved deep in his coat pockets. His expression was a baffled mix of despair and rage.
“He’s disappeared. Nobody knows where he is and nobody can find him.”
I chewed on that for a moment, wondering how long he’d known this fact and hadn’t told me.
“Since when?”
“Almost right after the incident in Houston.” His mouth turned up wryly. He was referring to his near-fatal overdose.
“Someone gave him the heads up?” A cold sliver of disquiet slid down my spine then back up again as the implications hit me.
“Looks like it.” We stopped where the sidewalk ended, facing each other. The ground beneath the maple trees looked muddy. I had on boots—black winter boots with sheepskin lining. I’d bought them on sale last spring and this was my first chance to wear them. They would have been okay in the mud, but Murphy didn’t seem inclined to wander off the path. He had a pair of dark brown Timberland boots. They were waterproof but, ten to one, he didn’t know that. He hadn’t bought them—I had.
He saw me examine them critically and shook his head.
“Don’t even think about it. I like these boots and if they go missing I’m going to hunt them down.”
“You’ve been wearing them for two weeks, Murphy.”
“And I’ll be wearing them for two weeks more and two weeks after that probably. I like them.”
“At least wear one of your other pairs once in a while? Couple times a week? Please?” I begged. The frigid wind blew a strand of hair into my eyes and I brushed it away with impatient fingers.
He gave me an ironic smile, one that tugged at something inside me. Sometimes when he looked at me, my heart gave a strange little flip.
“Only if you leave these alone and let me wear them in peace,” he said.
I lifted a hand in a solemn oath. “I swear,” I said in a serious tone that made him roll his eyes.
“Why didn’t Grandfather Tobias get a warning the same as Grandfather Mick?” We were halfway back to the car when I posed the question. Murphy gave an eloquent shrug.
“Maybe he did and he chose to disregard it.”
The Prelude’s lights winked as Murphy unlocked the car with the button on the ignition key. He opened my door for me and I hesitated before getting all the way in.
“You know something I don’t?” I knew I sounded suspicious, but damn it, sometimes the man could be an oyster.
He flashed me an enigmatic smile and waited for me to get all the way in before he shut my door. I watched him through the windshield as he crossed in front of the car and got behind the wheel.
Before he turned the key in the ignition he looked at me and said, “Wanna drive?”
“Get the hell out of my face, Murphy.” I pulled at the seat belt.
“Just thought I’d ask.” He turned the key. The Prelude’s engine purred into life.
“I will never drive this car.” I crossed my arms mutinously as he looked over his shoulder and backed out of the parking space.
“You are going to drive again someday.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” I advised, and he gave me another ironic smile before putting the car in drive and moving forward.
We were back on the interstate in less than forty-five seconds. Traffic was sparse—it was New Year’s Day and most people were sensibly sleeping off their hangovers and binging on junk food. Not us. We were almost to the safe house in Hartford where I’d have to confront the man who had murdered my bond mates. Happy fucking New Year indeed.
Chapter 4
Hartford was a relatively small city dominated by tall buildings which housed insurance companies. The safe house was in the Asylum Hill neighborhood—which was rather apt, I suppose. Located on Farmington Avenue, the Great Pack owned it in conjunction with the Regional Council of New England. It dated back to the late 1800s and had five bedrooms and three baths upstairs, while the downstairs was divided into a large front room, a small kitchen, a half bath, a dining room stuffed with Colonial furniture and two conference rooms, one rather larger than the other.
I remembered the larger conference room vividly. I’d spent hours there going over the accident with Councilor Allerton and the Regional Council. One awful day had been spent with my pack—and one and all said vicious and hateful things about me. Even Callie, my best friend besides Elena, had